Speaker 1: The buzzing lights overhead made the air itself feel charged,
as if everything in the storre's belly trembled in anticipation.
My first time walking past the plate glass doors at
ten fifty seven p m. I carried my old back
back slung on one shoulder, two pins and the uncertain
confidence that comes with starting at the bottom. The lobby
was washed in blue white fluorescence and the faint odor
of plastic so clean and impersonal it seemed almost clinical.
A wall mounted clock tipped toward midnight, but there were
no customers left, only the drawn faces of a night
chift whorld, someone mopping a pair of silent stalker's pushing carts,
and at the far end, by the service desk, missus
Pennington waiting. She was hard to make out at first,
a small figure in a navy card again, hair pull
tightly back, a gold name tablet glinted even in the
pale light. She stepped out and hurried to meet me.
Her lips formed a brief, strained smile. Mister Alex, Yes,
good you prompt. We value that. She ushered me behind
the counter, lowering her voice. Come with me. Night gets
busy in its own way before I could respond. She
produced a worn, black leather bound log with a battered
sticker in the spine security shift record. She pressed it
into my hands. Important thing for you to remember. Logs
must be precise. Her fingers gripped mine firmly through the book.
She darted a worrid glance at the cluster of security
monitors above the desk, their images gray and grainy, caught wheels,
frozen mid aisle, cleaning cut looking and produce the endless rose,
stretching and moving into the night. Write everything, patrol times,
door checks, anything odd, especially. She pressed the low book
again every hour and the hour. Her urgency didn't match
the ghostly silence of the place. She kept glancing at
the corner monitor, where nothing moved but the rolling shadow
of a janitor's mop. As she led me to an
access door painted employees only, I tried to brush off
her nerves as the routine hazen of a new hire.
The back corrior doors were dazzlingly bright, but disconcertingly empty,
announcements about cleaning products and discants echoing at odd moments
to unseen speakers. Only. The stor's own hum filled the
gaps of meditation by machine Missus Pennington pointed out the
key points back dock, fire exit control office, then the
surveillance room, windows swaddled in a faint cold that lingered
above the tiles. She paused outside the door to the
staff break room, hand lingering on a heavy lock secured
door at the corridor's end. From beneath, a sliver of
yellowish light showed unwavering. She didn't speak about that room. Instead,
she fiddled with the chain of her badge and muttered,
ye'll Lockier runs every hour, lest God neglected that, and
well it causes trouble, don't freelance left alone at the
book and the uneven clock of her heels fading, I
paged through the lock. Most pages were neat, dotted with
time stemps, initials and notations about entry doors locked east dock,
checked break rom twelve four a m all clear, but
then a strange abruptness seven nights running. Just last week,
cassette of pages had been sliced out. There were replacements,
five sheets tucked in with blocky handwriting, scattered hans, missing
vag statements like all okay none were signed, each rotten
in a different pen, as if someone tried far too
hard to replicate routine. The replacement page crackled slightly at
the edges, carelessly inserted, not even matching in size. I
ran my thumb over the rough edge where the original
sheets had been ripped. The intercom warbled a clip forced
distored at clitching for a beat, announced clean up to
Cangod's security check at your convenience. The syllables studded. It
sounded more like a warning, then a request. I returned
to the main floor. The aisle stretched and GEO met
corridor too perfect, so still that the glossy touse seemed
sticky beneath my boots. A solitary beep sounded distant. Someone
scanning stock with rubber gloves at the front end, circling
through the brick room to note my presence. I glanced
back at the closed door with the odd light beneath it.
Some kind of maintenance room. Maybe I scribbled my first
entry with deliberate neatness. Eleven nine p m. Initial patrol
store quiet, no issues. Still Missess Pennington's warnings echoed. She
watched the monitors like someone waiting for a lightning strike.
Something about the gaps in the lobeok made me scalprickle.
My job was simple, but I felt as if the
very air around me were suspended in the point of
a pin. My name is Alex Kern, and twelve hours
ago I didn't know anything about that kind of tension.
Now I could already feel the edge's Lengthen eight the
eye was stretching before me, stitched together by the hum
of lights and the kernel or suspicion left by another
person's erasure. That first night was supposed to be forgettable,
a steady paycheck. Instead, it was the start of something
I'm certain i'll never fully describe asterisk. When you moved
to a new place, nothing quite prepares you for the
way the unfamiliar shapes itself around you. My life before
the night shift was simple, maybe even stale. I'd pulled
into Ashen on the promise of cheaper rent and a
job I could start immediately, leaving behind a string of
temp gigs, all defined by blurring days, Brettel paychecks, and
faces that forgot you were seen as you clocked out here.
My apartment was on the third floor, above a faded
pharmacy and a perpetually closed near salon. My furniture a
twin mattress, metal chair, and a plowed table where three
boxes still sat and packed. When I got the job
off in night security at the twenty four iron Distant Giant,
I told myself it was temporary. It was routine, maxed
out at minimum wage, but steady and honest. My neighbors
wereked dires too. I'd see them leaving before dawn, returning
with groceries and exhaustion in their eyes, never saying much.
The whole block seemed to withhold itself. Discount giants overnight
ships carried a rhythm that settled into the body. Clocking
before midnight, clip on the store as she tight loop
past the punch clock, and try not to nod off
before four. The store itself felt timeless, a mini city
of fluorescent light and generic merchandise. Laundry, detergent, bulk snacks,
socks and seasonal items stretched endlessly, dynachoing polished ailes. There
was always cleaning to do, shipments, to receive, cold cases
to check. Sand was swallowed by the refrigeration units, drown
and the pulse of air exchanges overhead. The regular night
staff were eyelands unto themselves. Simon, the janitor was older
with the steep back and hands that to sit his
mop without looking up. He never lingered over his work,
hushing his broom over the polished floors, humming snatches of
half remembered tunes. If I caught his eye, he'd gnawd,
but his mouth never found a full smile. Clara was
the temp maybe nineteen, then voiced in quick to shrink
back if addressed. She moved from shelf to shelf with
almost mechanical motions, stackings, always scanning as if something might
jump out from between the boxes. The overnight stop manager,
mister Kelling, was the only person with real forty. Once
Missess Pennington left for her cat napped in the office.
He was wide shouldered, shaved head catching the light, and
his voice when he used it seemed to flatten a
whole conversation at once. He was the type of manager
who never shared a joke between rounds. I tried to
sit burnt black coffee in the brick area, sometimes sitting
with Simon o'clar always briefly, as breaks here were an
awkward negotiation. Simon might mutter weather's changing and then stare
fixedly at his coffee. Clara sometimes would say nothing at all.
There were always things to note, the freezer sections, blink
of blue light behind the plastic extract doors, the delica,
relentless taking of the bakery time or inventory cages set
against the walls like mechanical herds. There were always three
palettes that never seemed to disappear, half unpacked, but forever blocking.
A paper towel aisle ed patrol with my story should
flashlight scanning for open doors, unlock windows, and occasionally find
only the breathless chill that seemed to waft up from
the tiled floors and produce. Most nights, nothing happened. Still,
the routines had an edge. The staff kept their distance.
Conversations were clipped wary. I tried to break the ice once.
I said to Simon, kind of peaceful at this ire.
He just glanced at me in methodically rance his mop, replying,
I guess the coffee pot gurgle, the microwave beat. Nobody
seemed to linger. Even when joke's surface, They were always
half sad, like the punchline was too risky. Behind the
glass in the security office, I felt even more isolated,
hint him by flickering monitors that painted doe and kind
of monochrome vigil. The screen showed every corner buzzing, with
the stores restless electricity. I sometimes watched the parking lot
empty except for a light shift commuter bus passing by,
and the security truck idling in the shadows by the
garden center. Yet for all the banality of the tasks,
there were little cracks in the routine, a sense that
everyone else was following instructions learned for experience, locked away
and only doled out impartial hints. Nobody ever offered to
teach me the true schedule. I just watched for clues,
reading anxiety in the way people moved. When did suddenly
vanish into the back corridors without a way. There was
one thing I kept noticing. The whole store was so
well cleaned. It seemed determined to avoid leaving any trees behind,
Clocks ticked, the refrigeration harmed, and yet in the back
garden the uneasy feeling that the shift had customs and
dangers I didn't understand. I told myself it was just nerves.
Everyone feels out of place in a new job. But
some silences hover longer than they should, and some warnings
stay it with you even after you leave her room asterisk.
My second night began differently. When I came in, the
registered drawers already counted, Missess Pennington was nowhere in sight. Instead,
set where her chair should be was a note blocky
capitals and a black marker, Love must be complete, no exceptions. Ippi.
The staff seemed even more buttoned up that night. Calling
didn't look up as I clopped in. Simon s wept
near the entrance, but wouldn't meet my gaze. Twice I
tried to start a conversation, and he quietly moved down
the next ale. When I asked Clara how her shift
was going, she only shrugged. I was starting over my shoulder.
I started my rounds, clipboard in hand. When I circled
back toward the staff corridor, I heard of was sharp
and urgent. Behind the locked staff, only a door at
the far end, the one Pennington had pointedly avoided showing
me the night before. It was a man's tone, muffled, argumentative,
but as I drew closer, a hush fell. I wrapped
once a perfunctory knock, but got no answer, just the long,
silvery stretch of silence that at one a m seems
to vibrate inside your skull with little else to do
in that empty feeling from the missing locks. The night
before I went to review them again, the security office
was so still that every click of the metal file
cabinet seemed too loud. I pulled the previous months guarred
logs helping for routine and found something off. Weeks back,
certain dates when neat skipped to no inches at ohor
we labeled store closed maintenance, even though employees on payroll
for those nights remained on those dates. The schedules pinned
in the breakroom had written in smarje pen whether de
llre is no shift needed, but nothing in the official
rerecords match chiffs, sign INDs, payroll deliverers. It was as
if someone carefully erased or reroared the past, covering it
over with awkward forgeries, and no one wanted to mention it. It
struck me as odd too, that all standard days flocks
were neatly initial to guard name signature notes, but the
night shift logs, the forgeries lacked initials, sometimes misspelled names,
timings always rounded off to the iron, a way that
made me doubt anyone checked the doors at all. In
the Martians I saw names in red Ink, Bailey, stainic
El West. Each crotched out, rewritten, and then widded over,
leaving faint gost beneath the surface. In a few places
sheets have been so heavily scrubed with correction fluid they
walked from the morsture. Why so much troubled to correct
routine records unless someone didn't want even the bland facts preserved.
A little after three a m. I wandered into the
frozen food section for my next round. I glimpsed a
pale women stacking frozen pizzas in silence. When I greeted her,
she jerked upright the curtains, shaking in her arms. Her
employee badge slipped out a few She asked, don't ask
questions here as wide, and hurried off between the cases.
Before I could respond, her badge said Beth. But when
I finished my circuit and tried to find her again
behind the stock room, the break room, the front till
she was nowhere. Even after I checked the lock book
for her name, nothing no tempt, since Laura had been
listed on recent schedules, and no records for any bear.
I spent the rest of that shift half expecting Penninton
to appear and explain everything, but instead the corridors felt
emptier than before, the overhead lights a little too bright,
and the corners at Chingley dark astirs. I couldn't let
go of the memory of Beth's white face as she
recoiled from me. When Simon came by my desk during
the next shift to refill his cart, I've tried subtlety
the lockbooks from last week. I've noticed some missing pages.
Did you ever hear what happened? He stiffened his hands
wrung out from the mop, gripped the metal hand no
more tightly. He didn't look up. Some people just stopped
coming back. Hard job nights. Some people can't take it.
That was the end of the conversation. He pushed off
down the corridor, determined to put the oddities into perspective.
I waited for loll and quietly locked onto the decado
old staff computer in the surveillance office. I clicked through
the HR roster, double checking employee names from the LOP books.
Several Stainik Bailey west Or absent from the records, although
they'd been signing locks just last week. No Forwaring invote
no hr notes, no separated It was as if they
had never been there. I paged backward through the last
month of archivedmale schedules until two twelve a m. When
the computer screen save A flickered and glitched. I tried
to ignore it, foxing on the CISCTV fees twenty four
black and white windows stacked across two monitors. On a whim,
I scrubbed through the recordings from recent anomalous nights, and
something immediately caught my attention. On each of the missing
nights a week ago two weeks prior to feet glitched
off exactly two fourteen a m. For a full thirty
five minutes, every camera went black. When the feed resumed
placement at shifted trollers had moved, carts were gone. Sometimes
a staffer was visible pushing an overloaded flat, had done
the corridor flanked by two figures in non the script
were closed with no visible badges. I watched fingers, tents
on a handle, eyes dart around, and none of these
people appeared in the regular staff lists on bright contrasts.
Their faces blurred on the black and white footage. One time,
attempt worked alone toward the loading dock at two fifty
a m her posture rigid, two shadowed figures followed always
a pace behind the vent at the bay. Outside was
empty when the foot cut out, but when it returned
it was gone. When I approached Kelling about some of
these discrepancies, he didn't even blink. Look just to your job.
Don't snoop where you don't belong. Some shifts aren't for
every one at the brake, I scribbled down times, badge,
numbers that had flushed by its greens, anything that might
explain the gaps. My next patrol in the back by
a loading bay made my breath catch. A weird chill
seeped under the door from outside and inside the air
stank of cleaning chemicals. There wedged under a shelf was
a single crumpled visit to Badge. No name, no forto,
just the store logo and a large red line through
the date. My suspicion turned to certainty when I found
another delivery entry in the log for three twenty a
m erect bulk office paper seven pallets of but cross
checking with the official schedule showed no shipments would due.
Some one had listed at going goods for the same
time as misk who was shiving out at three a m.
And why would the logs be so determinedly vague? The
tension in the air that night was palpable. Klara called
upsick for her next shift, a hasty force mill to Pennington,
with her voice almost breaking. Beth, the pale faced temp
never returned. I quietly reached out to the phone numbers
on the old schedule for previous guards, but none of
the mans. Eventually massess Pennington Cockwynd and cornered me discreetly
by the staff bathroom with a practice smile. She leaned
in and said, there are sigmons changed, don't reach out again,
and best for you not to overinvestigate. Then she disappeared
into the staff area, shutting the door securely behind her.
From that point I was aware of every cavas gaze,
every subtle movement in the brevery of the monitors. Somebody
or something nothing my interest were calibrating from my presence. Still,
I couldn't help myself. Each new inconsistency was another needle
in a haystack, and I needed to know whether the
haystick was built to hide them or made by what
they'd concealed. Asturisk By the beginning of my second week,
the supernatural edge of my worry had given water colder,
more precise kind of feared, a fear of being watched
by people who deliberately wanted not to be seen. It
was nearly to zero a m. When the first reel
change happened. The staff aerial lights usually deemed by Killing's
man at dups of electric and sight lines were unexpectedly blazing.
I found myself standing outside a door marked stor or four,
which on my four plan didn't exist. I leaned close
and have voices within tension sharp enough to cut metal
scraped against tile. Paper shuffled, then, as if an invisible
cue path. Silence returned, thick and unielding. I remembered, with
a heat of gelt, seeing Missus Pennington relock her desk
earlier when she went for break, humming the faint melody
she used as camouflage. I doubled back and quietly purubed
in her drawer. It was full of loose keys, were seats,
and a photograph of the staff from years before, at
least three faces circle, but now crossed out in thick
black marker. I took the small silver key and matched
the storage forelock on break hot pounding. I returned and
gently let myself in the store. Room was organized with
the carry you only see in evidence lockers, O disaster
prep bunkers. Hard plastic bins ran along one wall, each
with a tabe label Bailey West J. Williams's names that
matched the missing roster. Inside some bins were wilting uniforms,
id badges and sealed envelopes. Against the wall, a corkboard
shimmered with pin photos, most printed in black and white,
several with cleared scrolled across the faces in permanent red marks.
A Lijah sat open on a side table, a list
of employee numbers marked in red or black dates trailing
off beside the names. The ones with the red EGX
were all missing from current schedules. Some marked out the
third shift and not returned. I fumbled for my phone
and took a quick photo of the room, my hand
shaking so badly. The first was blowed. I heard a
footst just a whisper of Robert soil on tile, then
two voices too quiet for me to make out. The
new ones noticed too much hannocked. I shoved the phone
into my back pocket and slipped out, closing the door
as softly as I could were locking, I duped back
into the corridor, holding my breath as a pair of
shadow ships slipped past at the far end. It hit
me then that I was beyond the territory where curiosity
was excusable. The way everyone had frozen in avoidance, the
names in the locker, the relentless were rited of the logs.
None of it was accidental. Some one was watching, keeping track,
and by peeking behind the curtain, I'd made myself into
this thread in the oppressive hum of the lights, with
every shadow scraping the towel. Now suspicious, I realized that
questions were and welcomed here, and not a few valies
staying on any list besides the one in the back
of the storm. My whole body felt wire, my breath
force threw teeth, as if the building itself had turned
its side on me. The un knees was no longer
abstract and no longer theirs. It was mine, And whatever
had happened to the bests and balers, the missing names
and vanished temps, I couldn't convince myself it wouldn't soon
happen to me. I pissed the narrow breakroum, too jumpy
to sit with my coffee fingers, and consciously tracing the
fresh outline of the key in my pocket. Witless ray
trailed every thought. The next patrol was due, and I
couldn't risk looking suspicious. But every corridor and camelon seemed
newly meaningful, full of brittle expectation. There were tasks to
be done, doors to check, freezers, to relock. The tedium
of a midnight security detail for the world had tilted
after that glimpse behind Storage four's door. It was impossible
to see anything as just routine. I couldn't walk past
a single staff locker of supply cage without wondering whether
some one else had been as careless as I'd just been,
whether a previous God's curiosity had cost them their job,
or something else. The corridors had quieted. Flora's figure passed
beyond hardware, barely a blow between Encips's she stacked bathroom
tissue high in formulaic. Simon's clean up cots squeaked in
nansony down the main aisle, and every so often his
head poked into view, as if to check that every
one was in place. The asmelt faintly at full polish,
undertoned by whatever industrial disinfectant clung to the back rooms.
I moved in a clockwork shape of my assigned circuit,
but my mind ran frantic. I replayed the voices outside
storage for the cadence of worry. If they had seen me,
if the camera in the corridor was monitored live. Nothing
felt unlikely, the knowledge scorned in my stomach. It was
halfway through my next round when I noticed the black
uniform temp from earlier in the night, tall nondescript pushing
a cart stack to seal boxes marked damage returned in
gray marker. I couldn't see his name tag from where
I stir, but he angled his head just enough to
clock me, then kept rolling for a few seconds. He
paused by an emergency exit, glanced down at his foe,
and then vanished into the gloom of pharmacy storage. On
a whim, I ducked into the adjacent aisle and looked
through gap in the shelves. He hedded one box, set
it aside, and then appeared to send a text before
or wheeling the lot on, totally methodical, as if moving
through some prayer ange list. It seemed so organized, almost deliberate.
That was the fourth temp I had seen in two nights.
I could and recall from the orientation roster, Nor could
I imagine what a damage returns had to do with
this much secrecy. I let a silent minute pass, then
took a direct line to the surveillance office. Four of
the monitors were showing the parking lot empty save for
an old midsize finitdly under a burnt out light. Its
windows were fogged tailgate, reflecting the neon glow from the
store front sign. For a while I watched half way,
expecting to witness a hand wave a covert signal, but
no one emerged. I turned my focus to the rear
agits suckled rapidly through the camera bank, searching for any
hint of abnormalities. Ad in came from the staff message
terminal routine sweep all staff to check in with supervisor
before break. It wasn't signed by Cowling or Pennington, not
even an acronym. The message felt perfunctory, But as I
listened for signs of people gathering, I noticed only Simon
heading toward the break room, his cart newly empty. Clara
was nowhere insight on the monitors. Feeling exposed, I eased
myself out and down the back corridor. Against better judgment.
I passed by the lock staff lounged again, though one
Pennington never described, the light beneath was gone, replaced by
a faint sound of shuffling paper and a single cough.
I paused, drawn by the breege in the usual hush,
But when I laid a hand on the knob, the
movement stopped. I could picture people pausing that word, listening
to my footsteps, I imagine being caught. I moved on.
Kelling confronted me at the end of the paper goods isle,
his mouth a flat line. Security. Shouldn't loiter, he said,
we keep things to schedule. Got it. His stare forced
me back on my heels. I nodded, uniform collar suddenly
tight against my throat. Anything to log TI asks, almost
a challenge, nothing out of the ordinary, I replied, For
it's more steady than I felt. He grunted, watching just
a shade too closely, his hands curled at his sides,
as if he expected me to lunge for a fire alarm.
I stood my ground, took the cue to move along.
Toward my nexation, grateful that the confrontation was brief but
more uneasy than before. At the top of the Eire,
I filled in my log with mechanical precision one zero
am patrol complete, all areas quiet. The words felt fredburn
out every dull into your record of what I wasn't
willing to write that I've found evidence of people being deleted,
that there were conversations and caches, of possessions being out
of mize behind locked doors. Invisible lines were being drawn
all over the building. On my way to the freezers,
I saw Klorokusch behind a display of Desserp For the
first time. She made I contact, mouth open as if
to speak, but then Simon swept by and she melted
into the shadows, hands trembling. I wondered how many people
had risked talking, only to decide too late that it
wasn't worth the cost asterisk. By three forty five, the
sword had settled into the last act of night. The
display straightened to flow slick from cleaning every alpristine. I
stood near the entry weight, tracking the clock, but at
the edge of my hearing something subtle shifted. I hiss
o static from the intercom. It wasn't scheduled announcement, just
that barely audible broken transmission, snatches of words, staff reverse
entry confirmed, shuffling static, then the sound dropped out again.
I crossed back through to the security office. On screening,
the van in the parking lot was gone out. On
the monitor, I I saw calling push a cut toward
the warehouse bay, then double back just out of sight.
Simon for once stood at the far edge of the
break room, motionless, searing into the empty vending machine as
he refilled the sanitizer canister. A weirk coordination had descended,
people not working but watching, as if waiting for sun key. Suddenly,
Pennington swept in, brushing past me with her cardigan flaring
over her wrists, her face tightly composed. Alex in my office, please,
she said, Her voice forced her a rehearsed smile. My
stomach dropped, but I followed, determined to play dumb. She
motioned for me to sit lock the door and perched
on the edge of her desk, flipping through a stack
of standard is showy cha forms. The room was stiflingly hot,
her lamp shining on a pile of staff folders. Things
are running smoothly, she asked, Of course, nothing unusual, I said,
asking how my hand shook. She seemed to weigh the words,
then tapped the penniedly and the table top. There are
responsibilities on the shift, not just walking the aisles. Her
gaze flickered to the clock, then to my badge. You've
been talking to the other staff. Routine questions can be misunderstood.
It's best to lock what you see, not what you guess.
You know understood, absolutely, Missus Pennington. She held my stare,
the silence stretching, then said more quietly. We hire people
who follow the routine. Those who can't move on, we
wish them the best, But this is a place for
people who do the work. You're not thinking about leaving already,
are you not? At all? I managed? Good, she clipped,
then stood, unlocking the door and waving me out. Stay alert, Alex,
last guard. Missus rounds and cause real headaches. Back in
the corridor, I caught my reflection of vending machine, pale
and anxious, out of place. Despite the naanetick and tie,
the distance between what I was documenting and what was
actually happening hollowed out, turning. Each passing minute into a
test asterisk. My vigil continued. I worked mechanically, slipping in
and out of the routine, ice peeled for any breach
in the script. Past four thirty, I patrolled toward the back,
passing the fire exit, to find the latch had been
freshly taped open with warehouse shipping labels. I stripped them
away and jotted a note. In a cool hush of produce,
I caught a movement at the end of the isle, Simon,
badly out of breath, wheeling a cot loaded with random
personal items, not cleaning supplies, but steps of bags, a
pair of old boots, several loose uniform shirts, and a
cardboard box sealed and marked return. Seeing me, he flinched,
jerked the cart around, and disappeared back towards storage floor.
The motion was so furtive, so out of step with
his careful movements the rest of the night, that I
followed a few steps behind Masnika's whispering overtile. Simon's path
took him only as far as the staff undry. A
few seconds passed, then a metallic thunk. The door swung
half roy shut. I weeded, watching as he emerged, eyes
darting when he saw me, his face tightened, the inventory moved.
That's all he muttered, voice barely above a whisper. Simon,
are you okay? I asked, soft as I could manage.
He hesitated, weighed whether to respond, then just shook his
head and retreated into the dark mouth of the corridor.
The rest of my shift passed inside the frame of
that exchanged, the dull edge of fear, the sense of
all staff houring just a bit too quickly through the
last stage of their rounds. By dawn, I clocked out,
walked through the short long of cold between the doors
and the pucking lot, and tried to shake off what
I'd seen. In full and different daylight. The building looked
like any large box store, a bake square, promise of boggains,
a pucking lot, dott it would just arrived staff. But
as I watched people arrive, exchanging silent nods, something felter
revocably changed. I had crossed an invisible threshold. Seen too
much to go buck. When I got home, I brought
the Lopwick out of my back back and studied the
page where I had copied down the names and read
excess from the ledger. I double checked the staff list online,
looking for any one who matched faces from the woolen
storage for the digital staff thus carried no trace of
Bailey or Wess or Ny J. Williams. I dug up
my phone and studded the blurry footo, each numbered line
as final as a termination, slept some of the faces
circled and crossed out in quick, sharp read. I wondered
what could it mean to be cleared? And why would
property I de badges, even uniforms be lock away like evidence,
not processed out like any other normal staff exit. The
further I got from that room, the more a sense
of vertigo prevailed, as if the Grande stood on was
less and less stable. Asters The next night, the scents
of surveillance had sharpened. Kelling and Pennington both watched me
at odd moments, their eyes narrowing whenever a cross out
in thresholds. Passing the security office for a fresh stack
of patrol forms, I caught Killing half folding a color
copy of a staff schedule I hadn't seen, posted a
shadow roster, names penciled in and then partially erased. He
turned his back, closed the folder and slatted it into
the filing cabinet. Beneath the coffee machine at two tennam.
As I made my way past the loading bay, a
cold breeze pushed into a side fend left ajar. There
was a tissue of bleach in the air, acrid and stinging.
I followed it to the back storum, where the light
was on. Despite the ire, I heard soft voices, the
flutter of paperwork. I didn't dare linger, but as I
turned I caught one clear phrase. We only need three,
the new ones almost ready, almost ready. The words landed
on me like a verdict. I knew now, with a cold,
unimpeachable certainty, that at least some of the staff were
not only aware of, but orchestrating the very process I'd
stumbled into. This was not neglect or clerical error. It
was something hidden and deliberate for leverage. I fought sleep
in the security office, replaying my secrely snapped images from
storage form, searching staff records on my phone. A handful
of social media posts for Bailey from six months back
ended abruptly, no new posts since the week in question.
A web forum from a neighboring town had a single
missing person's entry for some one named wester Temper at
a local store. The thread was to re comments long,
the last update four months old. Another phase j William's
surfaced in an A Day's staff photo online, but nothing
after July. Each lely it faded into vagueness. For every
person erased, another figure seemed slotted into the store's graveyard shifts.
The gap never closed. Astrosk, the sense of tightening scrutiny
reached a tipping point. By the time dawn arrived. I
had run through every paper roster twice, checked the log
book so many times. I newly memorized the last lot
week and composed an anonymous email listing what I'd found
in missing logs and scheduled shifts. The strange shadow tempires.
I set it to four to an out of town
friend if I mischeck in for more than two days,
a fail safe that felt both dramatic and cowardly. The
building now now felt less like a job site and
more like a trap. I could barely navigate each patrol,
each monitor a test of how well I could mass
my own alarm. Still, when I left the store that morning,
the world seemed unchanged. The faintness of tires on wet pavement,
the turning of the buzz of the light, the shimmer
of rain damp neon on the concrete, all indifferent, remote
and touched by walklong beneath the surface of the previous night.
As I turned my face into the wind towarto and
packed back, suddenly heavier on my shoulder, I knew the
stower would go on opening, just as it always had.
The aisles would be restocked, the same radius would harump
into calm whitdakoat with pointless bargains, but at some costly margin,
some small fraction of every week, something else was being managed, recorded, erased,
and replaced. I'd always thought that routine protected you, But
here routine was a razor's edge, and I had already slipped.
I got home in a sweat that diur before dawn,
every shadow in my apartment pressing down tier than the
blackout curtains. As I paced, I kept touching my hip,
checking for the key had smuggled back from storage, fall
like it was a live ember. Even in the familiar
hush fridge, humming radiator pipe pinioned now and then, it
was impossible to shake the memory of that room, the store,
the bins taggered with the names of people who'd simply vanished,
the ledgers, parade of Reddick's marks, and especially the photo
I snatched with my phone, a cork board of faces,
some I'd seen only once in the brick room, most
I had never met, but all crossed out and labeled cleared.
My mind ran one way, my senses the odder. I
kept thinking every car on the street was slowing, that
my phone would start ringing with an unfamiliar number. When
I opened my laptop and tried to look up the
employees I'd seen in those logs Bailey West J Williams,
there was almost nothing the missing persons posed on a
forum so under traffic that spambots overtook, a faded staff
photo in an archive newsletter, a string of an answer
to Awarded the Go comments on an old social media page.
Any One who'd worked the night shift seemed to slip
right out of the town's memory. I barely slept what
I did. I dreamt of walking the Stor's corridors, except
the shells were empty, and each fluorescent light blinked out
as I passed beneath. No matter how fast I walked,
there was always another aisle, never the exit. When my
alarm jarwred me awake. It took a moment to tell
if I'd really left the store. I started my evening
routine by double checking the photos, all still there on
my phone. I backed them up to a cloud account,
then again to a private server i'd once used for coursework.
Screen caps, blurry images of the ledger, a video of
my panic hand as I turned the key, I made
a list of everything I'd seen and everything I couldn't explain.
Reviewing it, I realized how thin the bridge from strange
knight shift rumors to something you could hand into police
actually was. When my shift time crept close, every insinct
told me to skip it, but the alternative that anyone
would know I was scared felt worse. I left my
apartment at dusk. The lobok sipped into my bag, careful
not to meet my own eyes in the front hall mirror.
The stores fasald caught the sunset. As I arrived, ordinary
as ever, employees shuffled and without meeting my eye their faces.
Pinsioned that after dark way, I had come to recognize,
don't volunteer anything, don't stand out, mind your own section.
I hesitated just a few seconds at the steps. If
I was being watched. I wanted it to look like nerves,
not knowledge. Inside nothing had changed on the surface. The
air was cold with overcompensating ac Simon was already mopping
near the front, and Kellen was talking to two tents
and black jackets at the punch clock near the head
of Nane bar Udge. Pennington materialized as I signed, in
a faint stiffness in her smile. Her fingers dromed on
the counter near the Lowe book, which was freshly lined
with a new stack of ronnews pages. Good to see you, Alex,
fun time, that's what matters. Her eyes did a quick
up and down, checking if I carried anything new, but
didn't comment in the way I hovered near the Brekriam door.
There was new pressure behind her words and in the
wady entire staff watched each other from the corners of
their eyes. Any tiny deviation from routine seemed dangerous. I
started my usual circuit, careful to lob each stop produce
frozen dairy back offices, each entry more perfunctory than usual,
but now every word might as well have been written
in red ink. No one greeted me, except for a
muttered evening from Simon. When I passed him at the
chemical storage. The difference was clear. This store was tuned
for something. All routines in places like dominoes lined up
for push. I spent most of the ile watching and
monitors from behind a shelter of glass. At twelve fifty five,
Killing stood outside the staff corridor door, not moving, as
if daring me to try it. Chlora's badge was still
in the oak and the break room, but I hadn't
seen her in the floor. When the ire struck, the
intercom spotted to scratch a life. This time the voice
chopped low and unmistakably, Pennington announced security all doors, mark
your times, supervision in process. The words were less a
message than a warning. I held my breath and rode
in the blank stiff looped book one zero a m
full patrol lot. I thought about leaving right then, but
there's no leaving when some one else has the gate key.
A sense of acceleration built as the next iro ticked
by the staff moved faster, constantly back and forth between
the warehouse stock rooms and the far loading bay, telling
barked instructions and clip tones that echoed down the metallic corridors.
Double check asle nine, where stock must be complete before break.
Simon worked in circles that didn't match his usual pattern,
never cleaning a section more than once and avoiding the
loading dock entirely. I hovered near the surveillance office, reviewing
camera fees and found the same gaps feats blocking out
at two fourteen light clockwork, Only this time I knew
what was meant to happen in that window. I pulled
up an archet security tape again, watched the blurry figures,
the tempt, the pallet, the silence procession, and imagine Colror
or someone like her at being ushered into the dark outside.
I tried to get her attention near the back of
the housewhorre section, but she only passed by with her
head down, lit pressed, white eyes full of plea and warning.
At once I could hear her breathe in too quickly.
I wanted to say something, anything, to promise I'd help,
but Simon rounded the isle at that moment, looking for
all the world like he blond, and whatever Clora might
have risk saying was swallowed. The entire night took on
a stifling rhythm, Watch write, patrol, repeat, but never linger,
never investigate kelling pace between the break room and his
own office, never more than two minutes out of the
camera site, Kennington's cardigan flitted past the edges of my vision.
Whenever I checked a corner. I wrote my log entries
with shaking hands, pressing so hard the pen nearly toward
a page. I caught Simon looking at me twice as
gaze sliding away, as if I was already marked for replacement.
By one thirty, the eyeoglass had flipped the tension ratchet
and tighter, turning every gesture into something measured and rehearsed.
I found the storm keys still in my pocket, and
when the corridor was clear, let myself back into storage.
I wanted one more photo, some proof that couldn't be
swept away as easily as the logs inside. It was
colder than before, the bins had been reorganized, now someone missing,
and the ledger had new lines filled out. A cluster
of photographs that had been pinned the upper corner was gone.
My heart slant when I realized, with sickening certainty that
one of the photo's tip to the wall was Clar's,
her employee badge number, her thin face newly marked with
a faded hole in black pen A sudden whispered beyond
the door froze me in place, A man's voice, deep
and deliberate, not scheduled. To wait for Pennington's word, the
footstiffs receded. I exhaled, pressing my pond record another panning
shot before tucking it away, replacing the key, and backing
out as quietly as possible. Any longer and I would
have been caught standing over invisible graves. I had to
do something, anything, but every version I ran through in
my head end of a police not believing me of
the evidence of operating, or simply being let goad like
the others, erased in the space between one shift and
the next. Before returning to the office, A ducked into
the employee bathroom and pulled out my phone I found
to obscure me missing persons pages again, this time crossed
referencing names and faces. There were no recent updates, only
the same stale questions if seen contact Ashen Beatty. I
tried the day manager's listed number, but after rings and transfers,
I was left hanging on a mechanical hold and never
speaking to anyone live. My second attempt verted through the
store's own ancient switchboard was picked up for half a second,
then silence. I'd hit a wall. In desperation, I composed
confidential tip to the local police website. I wrote down
everything missing guards, logo, discrepancies, and explained shifts, camera glitches.
Before it could be dismissed as spam, I uploaded two
of my store room photos, including the letter page with
those crimson drawn exes. I hit submit and wiped the
browser record from my phone, heart hammering solud. It drowned
out even the drone of the restroom found over my head.
If anyone checked that phone of the back room files
before morning, maybe something would shift somehow. That hope felt
as then as tissue paper. The return to the floor
took an out of will. I skirted the boundaries of
my assigned patrol, skimming the hall that led back into
the warehouse, noting how Kelling's shadow seemed to flicker in
every doorway. I watched Pennington outside her office, speaking in
low clipped tones with one of the tempts. Their glances
passed over me quick clinical, neither friendly nor openly hostile,
but as intent as a scalpel. I checked the monitors again,
this time nursing for the first time. A bottom drawer
behind the security death's tangle of wires was not fully closed.
When I slid it open, I discovered a toddle switch,
slightly recessed and caked in dust. My fingers hovered over.
It was this the circuit that cut the CCTV at
two fourteen. The temptation to flip it and see what
happened was powerful, but the consequences danced at the edge
of my vision. I snapped a quick picture instead, then
closed the drawer, not trusting myself to lead a single
sign that I had found it. Trudging to the trash
been outside the receiving door, I found it own corner
of a printer's schedule, the words shadow, shift, of visible
and pale, ghostly gray, three names unmatching the roster on
the lounge whiteboard. It was a paper grossed proof of
a work force no one admitted to. It was then
that my phone buzzed. An unsaved number popped up, no color.
I let it ring, not daring to answer out here
on the floor. Two minutes after another buzz, this time
a text stop do your job, no questions, no signature.
I stuffed the phone deep in my pocket, wipe my
pums on my pants. I began strategizing what I need
if I had to leave, suddenly saving photos on too
hidden cloud folder, keeping the keys in the loppook clothes,
preparing to hit the alarms if I needed help. Even
the option to run felt frightening. The corridors felt longer,
the lights colder, every employee now potential for it rather
than coworker. I was more acutely aware than ever someone
knew my curiosity, and they wouldn't let me vanish quietly
into a forgotten ledge a line. At that point, I
realized staying still or following routine was as likely to
get me cleared as any direct action would. As fatigue
and adrenaline tangled and my nerves grew raw, I steeled
myself for whatever would come next, all while acting as
though the Knight would never deviate from its cockrook script.
The next eye was ticked by and steady, soft kidding increments.
I watched his car check the paper towel en cup
for the third time, hands almost shaking the packs apart.
I tried to intercept her, murmuring, if you need help,
say nothing, just drop your badge. She didn't answer, but
her eyes locked on mine for a bee wide as
stone puddles, before she turned away, muttering as she vanished
into the next aisle. At one forty, I entered the
break room. The air inside was stale, down from overused
coffee and the smell of sanitizer pulling beneath the garbage can.
I filled a foam cup from the pot, fingers trembling.
When Simon stepped in. His voice was low, almost a whisper.
Alex watched the side doors to night. They'll try to
keep you away from the loading dock. Don't trust the
purple badges. You didn't hear it from me. His hands
twisted in the handle of his mop until the knuckles blanched.
I nodded, uncertain if he meant the advice as a
warning ore farewell. I lodged his advice word for word
in my notepad and pressed it flat between two pages
of the load book. I could feel physically the approach
of two zero am like the onset of a fever.
Telling cold old staff for inventory check at two five,
his voice cracking as it bounced down the empty aisles.
Group up night count. It was a roll call. That
never happened before. The tempts too tall, one short, all
anonymous gathered at the door. Inscrutable. Hendington held a clipboard
in one hand and a folding pen in the other,
flipping between columns I couldn't read. Her eyes flicked from
the page to me, never lingering. They finished the count
as always precise, clinical, only this time more focused on
each participant. I signed my initials, feeling there grew heavy
above me, as though the whole storre now pressed down
seeking weakness. As the clock near two fourteen, the moment
in every Earler footage where everything went dark. The entire
staff seemed to lean toward the edges, waiting. The usual
white noise of the place faded to replace by a
kind of superintendent silence. I posted myself behind the Janetor's
column of brooms in the hardware section. Phone ready camis
said on live stream to the hidden back up fold
I had recently created. Just past two ten, Pennington's force
ran sharply over the intercom inventory Palkara to receiving. There
was a hollow pause, as if the store itself held
its breath. I saw Clara emerge from Housewares, escorted by
two of an onnescript tempts her back taut, her hands
bald at her sides, hot pounding. I followed too fart, intervened,
but close enough to catch the cadence of the steps,
the strange core geography by which Clara, more captive than employee,
was guided between the back corror doors toward the rearytor.
I kept the phone filming as best I could, knowing
every second counted. At the back in a marked black
van idled with lights off in the loading bay, the
tempts flanked Clara Pennington waited outside the open service door,
clipboard press firmly to her chest, kellying behind her like
a sentry. Clara glanced my way, terraplane on her face.
I stepped forward, phone raised forst cracking as I yelled stop,
what are you doing with her? The sound bounced too
loud in the warehouse fastness telling turned his calm absolute,
almost rehearsed. You shouldn't be here, Alex, you should have
just done your job. Pennington's calms colder. She stepped forward
for his edge with actual contempt. You don't understand how
things work here. She held out the clipboard to ruster
of falsepied locks and a fold off staff recors, all
forged and incomplete. Clara sobbed Alex, please don't let them
one of the tempts moved to block her face and
readable in the dark. I lurched forward, shoving, feeling the
phone slipped from my hand clatter cross the concrete. But
even as hands growled at my arm, my phone kept streaming,
its tiny and blinking glass eye, staring at the toe
of a work boot and a slice of fluorescent ceiling.
Suddenly the store alarm blared into violent life, a double
pulse drill and ascending. It took me an instant to
realize my panic press and the silent alarm brislet it
had been issued, how triggered it. In the chaos, the
circle broke. Pennington screamed at attempts to shut the dock,
telling Spun to block the van, yelling to someone outside.
I shoved back, finding Klara's arm yanking her with me
into the labyrinth of the back storage. We ran, stumbling
past racks of shrink wrapped appliances, ducking beneath the glare
of wine glass racks, the taste of cold metal in
my mouth, A flash of movement from the corner. Another temp,
maybe Simon running into sept but the alarm was still
going chaos, too loud for easy orders. We slept breatheless
behind the swinging doors of the cold storage. I slammed
the latch down and hurd feet thunder passed. The air
inside was tight with frost and oil and fear. Clara's
face streaked with tears, the shape of her mouth never
quite closing from shock. I whispered, it's all right. I
won't let them take you. We'll wait until they bring cops.
She nodded, chest rising and falling in and steady rhythm,
then crouched against a crate of shrink wrapped turkeys, hugging
her knees. The minute stretched behind the white metal of
the freezer door. The stores whirled with storming voices, shouting,
shoe skidding, the alarm never letting up. I could hear
Pennington's voice barely barking find them in the rougher turns
of kelling barking orders, then the deeper duller echo of
some one pounding on the door. We stayed still as
time ticked forward. My fingers pecked at my phone, but
I'd left it behind. All I had was the cold
and Chloro's shallow, panicked breathing next to me. For a second,
I was sure we'd be found. Are breath visible and clustering,
but the footsteps were seated, replaced by the blare of
police sirens out front. It ended all at once, brupt
as a flick of a light. The door was banged wide,
and two officers in black paramedic jackets swept the building, shouting,
police come out, hands visible. It took me a beat
to remember how to move. I raised my hands and
led Carr forward from the freezer. Relief and exhaustion cresting
at the same moment. The main floors, with blue and
red light splintering off every display. Ambulance personnel stabilized Cora,
her face pasty, eyes darting as she tried to answer
simple questions. Pennington stood rigid by the customer service desk,
care massed cardigan eskewe hands empty of her usual clipboard.
Kelling was behind her, jaw set stone straight bracketing, silent
around any question. One officer pulled me aside, not unkindly,
tell me what happened? My words build out, People disappear here.
I've documented those proven storage vis ledger badgepins back and
vile fake schedules. They tried to take her. I pointed
to the staff corridor, now filled with more officers. I
walked him through the conspiracy, producing my safe log book,
the snap shots from the store, and the broken foam.
The officer paged through my evidence, eyes narrowing. His partner
was already on a radio, quietly reciting badged numbers and
dispatching orders. Of course, the vestibule three at Temps were
clustered in a tight circle, hand behind their backs, faces blank,
with practiced innocence. Clara, still trembling, told everything she remembered,
how she was invited to work late, how staff would
vanish in the night if they failed to fit the
room of property bins, the photos, the way. No one
ever spoke up, the officer writing it down as if
she felt threatened by specific staff. She just nodded and
poined it twice at Kelly. In turn, Kelling and penningtonclaimed ignorance,
voices sliding around facts, telling all our staff are accounted
for us. Sometimes people quit, but there's nothing wrong here, Hennington.
We only run background checks, stand up practice. This is
all a misunderstanding. There's been a lot of turnover, that's all.
None of it sounded convincing, but neither officer looked ready
to arrest any one. The investigation came immediately. Procedural files
tact as evidence computers boxed a temporary clover for review.
Sign taped on the automatic doors. As dawn pinped through
the haze, Simon shuffled in hands rais, muttering, I just clean,
never saw nothing. That was the only sentence he'd say.
The officers led him outside. I gave my statement three
more times. One officer, a woman with graying brown hair
and tired eyes, pressed me gently. Did you see anyone
physically force her? I said what I wouldn They were
taking her to a mocked van. I pulled her away.
She nodded, pen moving face and passive. We'll need you
both for formal statements. Some one will be in contact outside.
The sagging faces of the early morning shift watched as
police tape stretched across the entrance. No one said a word.
They just looked away. I castelo. By mid morning, it
was over, at least in the surface. The discount giants
stood doors taped off, flanked by police cruisers, detectives and
windbreakers drifted in and out heads together. Kelen Pennington and the
rest were ushered away, separated, not in handcuffs, never penned
suspects only for further review. Flara, chielded by two paramedics,
was hustled toward a waiting car. I caught her eye, Maud,
You're safe. Her expression flickered gratitude, terror hoped. Then she
was gone. As for me, I was told or remain available,
don't go anywhere. My badge was collected along with my
unblinking phone, suspension until further notice. Der Cha Vorsmil said
I was later dry and mechanical, pending ongoing investigation. When
I checked back online, the Discount Giant's website listed temporary renovations,
no overnight shifts. At this time, press inquiries went unanswered.
Not a single mention made the local news. Outside, I
watched the store from across the parking lot, shifting from
foot to foot as the marked vans came and went,
boxes wheeled out. Never a name on the manifest never
a word to the solitary onlookers. Once I tried to
find Chlora again, but the shelter listed no one by
her name, every record official or not, seemed to raise
before it was created. Discount Giant, which drew open a
week later with new management, new shifts, and holy new faces.
But the old light still buzzed. The security office's monitors
glared as I passed by all my way home unchanged,
impersonal watcher of nobody worth naming asters. Later that night,
rainslight the empty bus stop where I waited for a
city ride that felt a dimension out of sink. Next
to the schedule. Some one had pinned a recruitment flyer.
All night workers needed, no experience required, discreet, generous pay,
no foreign number, just a q A code and a
list of IRS overnight essential. I stared at it fatire
long before the bus came. When I got home, I
checked my cloud account. Several folders were missing, deleted, the
access logs, now listing, and familiar IP addresses. The most
daming files gone on my shelf. The security lock book
I'd start away smell sharply of anderseptic. I turned at
pages to find the most incriminating, the one with the
list of missing staff torn out. All that remained was
the last entry written in a hand I didn't recognize
in a slanting almost accused tory script, you don't belong
here any more. A cold awareness prickled at the base
of my neck as I closed the book and set
it aside. I put on a jacket, checked the locks,
and sat by the dark window for a long time,
watching the street and waiting for the lights to change.
The night pressed against the glass, familiar but wholly changed,
and I realized that whatever I'd done, I could never
quite trust routine again. The night pressed against the glass,
familiar but wholly changed, and I realized that whatever I'd done,
I could never quite trust routine again. Sleep at night
was impossible. Every bone felt laced with electric dread, a
heaviness that wouldn't drain away. My apartment seemed to hump faintly,
the heat ticking of like a distant heart. I joked
awake more than once, certain i'd heard someone on the
stairs or keys rattling outside my door, but whenever I
checked the people, the hallway was empty, and I'd listened
for another ten minutes to be sure, before slumping back
to the couch with my phone beside me. By the
following morning, it was as though the world at large
had conspired to seal. All the cracks news reports failed
to mention any incident at the Discount Giant, not even
an illusion to staffing changes or suspicious police activity. Overnight,
I scowled through local feeds, checked the town Happening's message board. Nothing.
The store's website flashed closed for inventory and renovation, thank
you for your patience. The staff roster section was replaced
with a password prompt, no photos, nothing about security or
about the night team at all. I tried to call
a police precinct, hope in my evident packet it made
any difference or at least generated a case number. After
being shuffled between three different extensions, a brisk female dispatcher said,
I'm sorry, we can comment about anning inquiries, and, when
pushed for specifics about the Discount Giant incident, responded, please
contact store management for customers matters. I asked about Officer Hardy,
the woman who had first taken my statement, but the
despatcher answered coolly, no such officers available at the moment.
Before disconnecting. The old log book sad to findly on
my kitchen table. I leafed for its pages again, noticing
for the first time that the final entry of The jagged,
unfamiliar threat was written with the same cheap blue pen
I had left on top of my fridge last week.
A siretas crept into my mouth. Some one had come
here or gotten in my own space. Compromised. I checked
every lock, we hung the chain, then realized that for
the first time in years, I'd left the window in
my bathroom open all night. After lunch, I addressed him.
Went downtown. It was raining lightly, the sidewalk's glossy with runoff.
The stalls parking lot was cordoned off with lucy yellow tape.
A pair of grim faced workers re lettering the huge
road signier coming soon New Eyres. I watched as in
a marked gray and idle by the loading bay. No
one near by warren NANTOK or uniform. Even the old
temp agency across the main roade had pulled a sign
from the window at the bus stop that recruitment flyer
has gone a strip of atesive residue. The only sign
it was I ever there. In its place, new posters
offer jobs at chain coffee shops and gas stations, every
one promising regular ires, reliable shifts, no drama. As I
boarded the bus heading back across town. I felt weightless
for a moment, as if I sliped sideways into a
version of my city that only looked familiar. That afternoon,
a letter arrived to tut and signed, folded in quarters,
slid beneath my door. It read, Alex, the company thanks
you for your diligence. Your assignment is concluded. Further communication
is unnecessary. All accounts have been settled. We advise you
do not return to the premises or contact current staff.
This concludes your obligations. We wish you success in the future. Admin.
There was nothing else, not even a return address. My
hand shook as the stuff to back an envelope, turning
it over and over. I checked my bank account, half
expecting my pay to be missing. Instead, a retention bondness
had appeared, four hundred dollars one cent, deposited by a
generic LLCY. I tried to recall signing any contract with
such a clause, but the new staff paperwork had always
blood together, a maze of fine print and signatures, completed
and full recent legs offices. I drew most of it
in cash and dropped it into a drawer, sickened by
the realization that whatever had happened. Someone was efficient, organized
and determined to smooth away every ripple. But the questions
still sizzled at the back of my mind. Whose faces
were crossed out in storage four? Why had Clora had
been taken? And why did it feel so orchestrated, so procedural,
so completely untraceable. Why were there no answer? Is no
noise all when everything else in the world seemed designed
to fill silence with content werein deepened outside streaking my window.
I booted up my old laptop, plugged in the back
up drive, and checked Maclad's servo one last time. Every
video from the final night, every stream of the loading bay,
the roster, even the grainy panning shot of the ledger
was missing. The access history showed downwards from two ap
addresses I didn't recognize listed as location several states away.
My photos of the property bins and staff I d
were fuzzed with digital artifacts, as though they had been
erased and restored several times over. Some files wouldn't open
at all now. Even the archive folder labeled the Giant
Evidence was corrupted, reading only access deny. I called a
friend from college who worked for Yelan's cybersecurity. She said,
if you're being pranked, it's a sophisticated one. If not,
just let it go. It's not worth getting paranoid about.
Don't give them a reason to notice you again. I
thanked her, hung up, and didn't say the rests that
paranoia had become impossible to ignore. Three nights later, walking
home on an unfamiliar route, I saw a figure in
a discount Giant. When bricker moved toward avan at the
edge of the parking lot, head down, moving too quickly
for a normal light shift. The license plate was caked
with mud. I ducked behind a mail box until the
engine started and the van slide off into traffic. No headlights,
no turn signal. I tried calling the main line of
the store the following morning, asking for human resources. The
number you have dialed is not in service. Please try
you call later, curn the automated voice. The website where
Fashioned Overnight had replaced the staff portal with the log
in for a corporate access Only employees will be contacted
by management. No job postings, no references to night security
at all. My last remaining hope was that the police
would reach out, request a more detailed statement, maybe update
me if the question Pennington and kelling. But days passed
and there was only the familiar ring, followed by a
brush message about in sufficient cold detail, messages left at
the precinct when unanswered. When I walked by the police
station one afternoon, a uniform man at the front desk
stared at me for a fraction too long, expression unreadable.
I bought a boner phone and checked hidden files one
more time. The scan ledger had been replaced with a
simple four hundred four error file not found. My back
up folder emptied itself. Time stunted three minutes before in
at the precise moment, the logs always vanished. The Thus
sense of danger of unfinished business kept me restless. I
wrote out everything that had happened in a notebook, names, patterns, timings,
details of who had seen when and who had disappeared.
I sealed the pages and left them with a friend,
just in case if something happened, at least the passer
might not be erased entirely. A week after the final night,
Descunt Giant's lights flickered on again, bare and harsh in
the darkness. I watched through the drizzle from the safety
of the bus shelter The parking lot was empty except
for a pair of a marked vehicles and one figure
smoking near the loading doors, faceless under his hoad, watching
the darkness, the very definition of troubled routine. A passing
police cruisers load its headlights, gliding across the stacked pallets
beside the bay, but didn't stop. As dawn came on,
a supply truck rolled up offloaded crates. Nobody checked, and
by sunrise the doors had reopened. New fliers papered every
bus stop on the main line. Fast pay, full time
night staff needed. All applications instructed, apply in person after
nine p m. Discretion essential cash pay on hire must
be willing to adapt to all assignments. The old QR
codes were gone, now just an address handwritten, scrolled and
markers that bled in the rain. I circled the block,
watching as two young men in ill fitting suits and
a woman with a bright purple badge clustered at the
side entrance, each checking overaliss and waving the occasional applicant
through a metal side door. No words carried across a lot,
just the low murmur of wheels and the automatic click
of a code locks sliding into place behind them. By noon,
the night had receded, but nothing in the world outside
felt less than canny. When I returned home, my apartment
no longer seemed like reliable refuge. A postcard proked beneath
the door at the discount giant logo rendered in dull
grays Gale with a s mauge over the eye that
was blank. I started to wonder if any one O
would remember Klara or Beth or Simon a year from now.
I wondered whether that building would keep absorbing every inconvenient
piece inside it, tune the lost shifts into a silence
nobody asked after forever. Any personal sense of triumphant, having intervened,
having gotten Chlora out, enforced to police response, felt almost
fictional now, then easily denied by a world that preferred
not to know. As weeks passed, all my evidence decayed
into rumor. New postings sought self motivated night agents. I
heard nothing from the shelter about Klara, nothing from law enforcement,
nothing from any of the survivors, if there were any.
The stor's exterior got a fresh coat of paint, the
windows shone, and a cheap banner red grand reopening now
hiring neck crew. In the end, it was not one
single dreadful event that lingered, but the persistent siroy taste
of machinery humming just beneath my city's surface, routine and
disturbed and willing to assimilate whatever or whoever stumbled across
its smooth path, and an eventful Tuesday. Walking home in
the blue dusk, I cut past the lot one last time.
The discant giant was bright with ugly energy. New temps
clustered at the side doors, shadows flecking in and out.
As a cross walked lighte blink green. I saw the
warehouse axis door swing open for a fraction of a second.
Pennington's face appeared in the light, older and stiffer eyes,
passing right over me, as if scanning a list. She
didn't flinch. She simply closed the door, and that was it,
the world swallowing the strange and sult leaving not even
an aftertaste for anyone who didn't want to look Somewhere.
I hoped that log book and those missing screens just
might Sunday matter. Until then, I kept my head down,
avoided the wrong blocks at night, and let myself sink
into the shifting, restless dock, always listening for footsteps that
might match my own